With high expectations, I walked into the movie theater and positioned myself in a great location. I was eager to watch the movie Transcendence for two reasons. First, I love science fiction. Second, I particularly enjoy the transcendental argument for God’s existence. Since the movie shared a word with an important argument, that was good enough reason for me to see what Hollywood had produced.

I was disappointed.

Johnny Depp plays Dr. Will Caster, who is a brilliant researcher in the area of artificial intelligence. But, there’s an anti-artificial-intelligence group who infiltrates a meeting and shoots Dr. Caster. To save his essence, his loving wife transfers his mind into a supercomputer. The premise was promising, but the result less so. The computerized Dr. Castor quickly expands into the Internet and begins to pursue altruistic endeavors. To do this he must gain more power, more computers, and more knowledge. Along the way, it becomes obvious that there’s no way to stop him. His power and his intense desire for knowledge and technological advancement cast a foreboding dread over the initial altruist endeavors that Dr. Caster’s computer-entombed mind initially sought to accomplish.  That is where the movie Transcendence began to fall apart. Though the acting was great, the cinematography fantastic, and the special effects phenomenal, they could not redeem the numerous plot holes that developed throughout the movie. At one point there were “bad guys” who were about to launch an assault on the newly developed computer central that housed Dr. Castor’s mind. But you’d think that with all his super brains and interconnectedness to cameras, computers, and satellites that he would have done something about the impending attack. Why didn’t he just override some rockets somewhere and blow the smithereens out of the pesky, anti-technology, tree huggers?

Without giving away the ending, when the credits finally rolled I actually said out loud “That’s it?” My wife, who tagged along, agreed that the ending was quite a letdown. So on the way home, we worked out a better ending–and it was easy to do! This is why I wish Hollywood would personally seek me out and get my approval and suggestions on the endings to science fiction movies. They’d make millions more. Oh well, their loss.

There is little cussing, lots of explosions, lots of gunfire, and several intense action scenes. There’s no nudity and just a little kissing. Does kissing really belong in science fiction movies? hmmmmm . . . .

The movie, Transcendence is worth seeing, but only for the special effects if you’re into that sort of thing.